Storm Warning

by Dinah McCall

  But it was the same group, and five of them were dead! Emily. Josephine. Lynn. Francis…and Allison. Dear Allison. This made no sense.

  She reread the letter, her focus lingering on two particular sentences.

  Whatever you do, don’t answer your phone unless you know for certain who’s calling. I sent a copy of all this stuff to Sullivan Dean, as well.

  She didn’t know who Sullivan Dean was, but she would find out when she talked to Georgia. Surely she had jumped to conclusions. Yet as Ginny dug through her desk for her address book, she kept thinking of the copied newspaper clippings. There was no denying the deaths of five of her childhood friends, and all within the space of a couple of months.

  “Where the heck is that…oh, here it is,” she muttered, as she yanked the address book from the back of the drawer.

  With shaking fingers, she punched in the number to Sacred Heart, then closed her eyes and took several slow, calming breaths. Even though she was expecting to hear a woman’s voice, when the call was answered, her heart skipped a beat.

  “Sacred Heart Convent.”

  “Yes…um…hello. This is Virginia Shapiro, I’m a good friend of Georgia…I mean, Sister Mary Teresa. I don’t know what your rules are, or where she is at the moment, but it’s imperative that I speak with her.”

  There was a distinct gasp at the other end of the line, then silence.

  “Hello? Hello? Are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Would you please hold?”

  Ginny glanced at her watch and then rolled her eyes as a recording of “The Hallelujah Chorus” came on in her ear. This was going to be okay. As soon as Georgia arrived and Ginny could hear her voice, everything would be okay. She just knew it.

  “Hello. Mother Superior speaking. Who’s calling, please?”

  Ginny glanced at the letter in her hand. “Virginia Shapiro. I need to speak to Sister Mary Teresa. It’s urgent.”

  “Are you family?”

  “No, but we are really old, really close friends. Please, I won’t keep her long, but…”

  “I’m sorry, dear,” the nun said. “It’s not that I won’t let her take the call, it’s that she can’t.”

  The knot in Ginny’s stomach tightened. “Why?”

  “Because Sister Mary is no longer with us.”

  Ginny breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh…you mean she’s moved? I didn’t know. Was she transferred, or whatever you call it? If you could give me her address, I would really appreciate it.”

  “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t make myself clear. Sister Mary didn’t transfer. She died.”

  Ginny slid to the floor, her knees beneath her chin as she struggled to breathe.

  “I don’t understand. She can’t be dead. She just wrote me a letter.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

  Ginny’s gaze fell on the Urgent notice on the outside of the envelope and bit her lip to keep from screaming. Would it have made a difference if she’d gotten this on time?

  “Please…how? How did she die?”

  “Technically…she drowned.”

  Shock sent Ginny scrambling to her feet. “That’s not possible. Georgia couldn’t swim. She was afraid of water. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it.”

  This last was something Mother Superior had not known, and the knowledge troubled her. She thought back to her conversation with the FBI agent who’d called earlier, claiming Sister Mary had been murdered. Could it be?

  “Still, it’s so,” she added.

  “I don’t believe it,” Ginny said, her voice shaking with disbelief and growing anger. “Was there someone else with her? She must have been pushed.”

  “Oh, my dear! You don’t know what you’re saying. Father Joseph saw her with his own eyes. He shouted at her to stop, but she didn’t seem to know he was anywhere in sight.”

  Bile rose in the back of Ginny’s throat. “Saw her do what?”

  “Why…she jumped. Straight off a cliff into a flood-swollen river. There wasn’t a thing that could be done to save her. Now all we can do is pray for her soul not to be lost.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She took her own life, my dear. Suicide is not condoned by the Holy Church. I’m afraid her soul is lost to God.”

  It was ten minutes after eleven when Ginny came to her senses, and then only because her phone began to ring. She got up from the sofa, her eyes swollen from the tears that she’d shed, and staggered toward the phone. Her hand was on the receiver when the line from Georgia’s letter popped back into her head.

  Don’t answer the phone unless you know who it is.

  In sudden panic, Ginny yanked the jack from the wall and then started to shake. This was crazy! What had Georgia meant? There were too many unanswered questions. She needed to talk to someone, but who?

  Immediately she thought of Harry Redford. Harry was not only her boss, he was the coolest man under pressure that she’d ever known. Staggering to the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face and managed to pull herself together. A few minutes later she was out the door with the packet of papers Georgia had sent clutched tightly to her chest. She would show this stuff to Harry. He would know what to do.

  Harry Redford took one look at the expression on Ginny Shapiro’s face and stifled the sarcastic remark he’d been about to make. He bolted from his desk, shoved her into a chair and shut the door to his office.

  “What?”

  Ginny looked up at him, taking refuge in the familiarity of his craggy face, and handed him the envelope full of papers.

  “What the hell’s this all about?” he growled, as he spread the stack across his desk.

  “I don’t know,” Ginny said, and then started to cry again. “Harry, I’m scared.”

  Harry read the letter first, then quickly scanned the copies of the newspaper clippings. Knitted brows forming a solid bushy line above his eyes, he continued to read. Finally he looked up, the letter from Sister Mary Teresa still in his hand.

  “Is this on the up-and-up?”

  She nodded.

  “What does your friend…this Sister Mary Teresa have to say about it?”

  Ginny’s tears started anew.

  Harry groaned and then handed her a box of tissues from his desk.

  “Here, damn it,” he muttered. “Blow your nose and then talk to me.”

  Ginny blew.

  “You have talked to her, haven’t you?” Harry asked.

  “She’s dead.”

  Harry leaned forward, the palms of his hands flat against the surface of his desk.

  “The hell you say! Since when?”

  “I don’t know the exact date, but it was sometime after she sent this.” Ginny took a shuddering breath. “Harry…I’m scared.”

  “Yeah, I can see why.” He frowned, then raked a hand through his thick, graying hair. “Talk to me. Tell me about these women. Exactly how were you connected?”

  “We were all enrolled in a private school in upstate New York. That’s where I grew up, remember?”

  “Yeah, go on. So you were classmates.”

  “Not only that, but there was the special class.”

  “What special class?”

  Ginny took another tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “When we were six, they began a special class…they called it a gifted class. There were seven students, all girls.” She pointed to the list of names in Georgia’s letter. “Except for me…they’re all dead, and all within the last couple of months.” She drew another shaky breath, waiting for Harry to make it all right.

  Harry blanched. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He glanced back at the letter. “Who’s Sullivan Dean?”

  “I don’t know. I was going to ask Georgia…Sister Mary…but now I—”

  She shook her head, unable to go on.

  “I don’t get the deal about not answering the phone, either,” Harry said. “But I do know something you can do.”

  “What?” Ginny asked.

  “
Get to your desk and make some calls. Follow up on these stories. Talk to their families. Find out what you can about the phone calls. Sister Mary died before she could fully explain what she knew, but she gave you a place to start. Now go do what you’ve been trained to do. Investigate!”

  Ginny stood. Harry was right. She’d been in shock before, that was all. There had to be an answer to this. All she had to do was find it.

  “Let me know what you find out,” he said.

  Ginny nodded.

  “Oh, and, kid…”

  Ginny paused.

  “Just to be on the safe side…maybe you really shouldn’t take any calls, okay?”

  Ginny swallowed nervously. “Right! I’ll have everything switched to voice mail.”

  “No, just let someone else take your calls. As far as the world needs to know, you’re on assignment and can’t be reached.”

  It was almost five o’clock when Ginny hung up the phone for the last time. It had taken her more than two hours before she’d located anyone in Oklahoma who could verify the story the Oklahoma Dispatch had done on Allison Turner. She’d had to call back four times before the reporter had returned, then he had to look up some notes to refer her to Allison’s friend, who had witnessed it all. Ginny rubbed her eyes and then rolled her neck to release some of the kinks.

  Her gaze fell on the notes she’d been making, as well as the stuff Georgia had sent her. This was so bizarre. From the first victim, whose husband had come home to find his son with the neighbor and a phone lying on the kitchen counter, to Allison, who’d driven straight into the side of a gasoline truck with her arms outstretched, she had to admit that Georgia’s warnings about the phone calls held merit. The only one who had broken protocol was Georgia, herself. The priest at the convent, a Father Joseph, stated that she’d come out of the confessional, walked past him as if he’d been invisible, and headed straight for the river. There were no phones in confessionals. For that matter, there weren’t any phones in the entire chapel, only in the convent office itself. But Ginny knew that, somehow, whatever had happened to the others had happened to Georgia, as well.

  Resting her head against the palms of her hands, she took a slow, weary breath. Had it been only this morning when her world had turned upside down? Her eyes were burning and puffy; her head was pounding. She’d cried more today than she’d cried in years, and all she’d gotten for her efforts was a resounding headache. If she didn’t answer any phones, maybe she would be okay, but she couldn’t go through life like this. She had to figure out what was happening and who was causing it.

  The phone rang on a nearby desk, and she jumped as if she’d been shot.

  I can’t live like this. I’ve got to get away, at least for a while. And I’ve got to tell Harry what I found out.

  Gathering up her notes and her purse, she headed for her boss’s office.

  “It’s not good,” she said, as she plopped down in a chair in front of his desk.

  Redford looked up, shoved aside the papers that he’d been working on, and kicked back in his chair.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “This is what I know for sure. There were seven of us in the first gifted class that Montgomery Academy had. Actually, the only gifted class, since the school burned down before the school year was over. Of those seven, six have died within the past couple of months. I’m the only one still living. Also, Georgia’s theory that they each had a phone call right before they died is true.” Ginny took a deep breath and then leaned forward. “Harry, I’m scared, and I don’t like being scared. I’m taking all of this information to the St. Louis Police Department, and then I’m leaving town. I don’t know where I’ll go just yet, but I’ll check in with you from time to time. What I need to know is…will I still have a job when I get back?”

  Harry snorted beneath his breath. “Hell, yes, you’ll have a job…and, I hope, an exclusive story to go with it. I want you to promise me that you’ll check in at least once a week so I’ll know you’re okay.”

  Ginny stood abruptly. “I promise,” she said, blinking rapidly to clear her vision through a fresh set of tears. “And, Harry…”

  “Yeah?” he said gruffly.

  “Thanks.”

  He came around his desk and gave her a hug. “Hang in there, kid, and if it gets to be too much, you get yourself back here ASAP. You don’t have to do this on your own, you know. We’ll figure something out.”

  “I know, but for now, I think I’ll feel safer if I can just disappear for a while.”

  Having said that, she gathered her things and walked out the door.

  “Hey, kid!” Harry called.

  Ginny stopped and turned.

  “You are going to the cops, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Whether they believe me or not is another story.”

  “They mess with you, I’ll tie knots in their asses they won’t ever get out.”

  Ginny grinned all the way to her car, but the moment she got inside, she locked the doors and then gave the parking lot a more than cursory glance before driving away.

  Sullivan Dean was at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, mentally cursing the snafu that had become his flight. Already on the second hour of an unscheduled delay, he headed for a pay phone, desperate to make contact with Virginia Shapiro. He’d already tried her apartment with no luck; then, when he’d tried the paper, he’d gotten nothing but voice mail. If he could only connect with her, he would feel a hell of a lot better.

  He hung up in defeat and went back to his chair, trying to ignore the squalling baby and its harried mother across the aisle from where he was sitting. In a moment of frustration and grief, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands.

  Ah, God. Georgia, Tom’s little sister, was dead. He could only imagine the family’s grief. And then there was his guilty conscience to deal with, as well. He’d been promising Georgia for years that he would come visit, yet had never made time—until now. Having to walk into her room and see the plain and simple life that she’d chosen for herself, all the while knowing the joy she’d derived from the decision, made it hard to draw breath. He’d gone through her personal belongings, almost expecting her to come bursting through the door at any time and berate him for digging through her things, then having to blank his mind to the knowledge that they were hers. As he’d searched, he had to admit that Georgia had been thorough in her amateur investigation. Although she’d made copies of everything she knew about the women who’d died, except for a school yearbook that had arrived after her death, he found nothing new.

  Struggling with grief, he’d gone to the chapel, prayed to the same God to whom Georgia had pledged her life, and made a promise to both. Whatever it took, he would find out who was behind these deaths and save Ginny Shapiro in the process. With the yearbook tucked safely at the bottom of his duffel bag, his next stop was St. Louis, Missouri.

  Detective Anthony Pagillia had a headache and the beginnings of another afternoon of heartburn when he saw a woman approaching his desk. Frowning, he tried to figure out why her face looked familiar. When she introduced herself, he remembered. She worked for the Daily and had covered the Bruhns kidnapping case last year.

  “Miss Shapiro, what can I do for you?” Pagillia said.

  She laid a large brown envelope before him. “Start by calling me Ginny,” she said. “And then finish by telling me I’m not losing my mind.”

  He smiled. “I make a point of never telling women anything that could get me hurt.” He dumped the contents of the envelope onto his desk. “What’s this about?”

  “I think someone wants me dead.”

  His smile froze, his eyes widening. “Are you serious?”

  “Just read. When you’ve finished, I’ll answer any questions I can.”

  A few minutes later, Pagillia rocked back in his chair and looked up “You have my attention. Start talking.”

  “Having read those, you know almost as much as I do.”
>
  “Your friend, the nun, what does she have to say?” he asked.

  Ginny’s chin quivered once, but she held herself back. This was no time to give in to new grief.

  “She’s dead. As of a day ago, she supposedly committed suicide by walking off a cliff into a flood-swollen river.” Ginny leaned forward, tapping her finger angrily against the surface of his desk. “Georgia Dudley—or Sister Mary Teresa, as the case may be—would never kill herself. Never.”

  Pagillia’s chair came down with a thump. “They’re all dead…these girls from that class?”

  “Except for me, yes, and all within the last two months. I did some checking before I came here. Besides the class connection, there is another common denominator.”

  “Like what?”

  “Every one of them received a phone call before she went off the deep end. We know because their family either found the phone off the hook or they were seen talking on the phone just prior to their deaths. Every one, that is, except for Georgia, and that’s just because I can’t prove it.”

  “I don’t get it. How could a phone call make six separate women in different parts of the country go out and commit what amounts to suicide?”

  “I don’t know,” Ginny said. “That’s where you come in. Will you help me?”

  “Of course,” Pagillia said. “I wonder…are other police departments aware of this connection?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ginny said. “The incidents were so scattered, and as you can tell from the newspaper clippings, they were all ruled as accidents or suicides. They have no reason to suspect any different.”

  “Then that’s where I start,” Pagillia said.

  “Thank God,” Ginny said, and then stood.

  “Where can I reach you?” the detective asked.

  “You can’t,” Ginny said. “I’m leaving town and, needless to say, I won’t be taking any phone calls.”

  “But what if I need to talk to you?”

  “I’ll call you,” Ginny said. “That’s the best I can promise. Oh…and you can keep the letter and clippings. I made copies for myself, just in case.”

  Pagillia nodded. “Just stay in touch.”

  “Count on it,” Ginny said, and walked away.

  It was five minutes past 11:00 p.m. when Ginny pulled beneath the canopy covering the entrance to the Hideaway Motel. Half of the neon letters on the motel sign were burned out, leaving it to read HIDE MOTEL. Well, she thought, it seems I’m in the right place after all.